TIRUPATI: A day before the mega launch, a team of ISRO scientists with a miniature model of Chandrayaan-3 offered prayers at Venkateswara Swamy temple in Tirumala on Thursday.
Chandrayaan-3, India’s third moon exploration mission, will be launched at 2:35 PM IST on Friday from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
It may be noted that it has been a long-standing practice of ISRO officials to offer prayers with miniature models of rockets and satellites at Tirumala before the launch.
ISRO chairman Sreedhara Panicker Somanath offered prayers at Chengalamma Parameswari Temple in Sullurpeta near SHAR in Tirupati district. Speaking to reporters, he said that he sought the blessings of Goddess Chengalamma for the success of the moon mission.
“Chandrayaan-3 will travel towards Moon over the next month after its launch on Friday. If everything goes fine, then, it will land on the surface of the Moon any day after August 23,” the ISRO chief stated.
The space agency on its official Twitter handle posted that Mission Readiness Review has been completed and that the board has authorised the launch.
According to ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2, which aims to demonstrate end-to-end capability in soft landing and roving on the lunar surface. It consists of lander and rover configurations. It will be launched by LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.
The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration till the 100-km lunar orbit. The propulsion module has a Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and polari metric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit.